Treading Dangerous Ground II

The Kingdom - 3.5/5

This is the first real blockbuster amongst a raft of forthcoming films dealing with that most controversial (to some) topic - American involvement in the Middle-East. Watch out for In the Valley of Elah, Rendition and Lions for Lambs, amongst others, over the next few weeks. The good news is that its not quite as jingoistic as the trailer or the plot might suggest. The bad news is that it never quite gets to grips with its subject matter. In fact, in many ways, it could be seen as a paralell for the American military presence - possibly well meaning, but so lacking in understanding that it comes across as patronising and, in some ways, offensive.

Putting that aside, as a genre piece, as an investigative thriller it is entertaining piece of cinema. Director Peter Berg (whose previous film, the excellent Friday Night Lights, never received the audience it deserved over here), handles the action sequences with great skill and aplomb from the initial shock and horror of the terrorist attack to the slowly building tension of the investigation to the final showdown which takes out most of a Riyadh apartment block.

A talented cast do their best - Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Chris Cooper are all capable of commanding attention whenever on screen and do their best with limited space for characterisation. Garner, in particular, suffers, given a bag of lollipops instead of characterisation, whilst Foxx gets a cringe-worthy speech about the birth of his son. Jeremy Piven, in a minor role as the scared diplomat tasked with getting the FBI team safely out of the country fares much better. Interestingly though, Ashraf Barhom (who previously appeared as a terrorist in Paradise Lost) all but steals the film from his American co-stars as the Saudi colonel leading the investigation and his cautious bonding with Foxx's FBI agent provides the emotional core of the film.

However entertaining it might be as a thriller, if a film is going to enter the murky waters of Middle East politics, it needs to do so with more understanding than is shown in most of the running time here. We are presented with Saudi Arabia as an extremely hostile place for westerners with no real sense of why this is. (For British audiences, the lack of understanding will reach laughable levels at the decision to call the bad guy Abu Hamza, of all the names they could have chosen). The good intentions are undermined by the fact they make the intruding Americans the ones who are always right and there is something quite patronising and offensive about the shots of Saudis looking on as the Americans show them how to conduct a real investigation. That said, the whole is almost totally redeemed by a devastating last couple of lines that will stay with you long after the final credits.